Disclaimer: I don't own Portal or any of it's Characters. I only own my SI-OC.

(Updated 5/15/17)

Chapter 2: First Day of Work

I opened my eye (singular) slowly. Hearing a small whirring sound as I did do. I blinked. The quiet whirring sound going again. I tried to glance around and found that I couldn't move my body. Looking down, I immediately noticed the metal spherical hull.

"Ack! What the hell?!" I shouted. I noticed in that moment that my voice now had a sort of mechanical sound to it. I sounded like It did on the phone, in my opinion. Childish and high pitch- wonderful.

"What happened!? Where am I!?" I called out fearfully.

"My, you are just as noisy as you were when you were in that flesh bag that you call human skin." Her voice said in a bored tone. I immediately tried to turn my optic towards her voice. The light in my optic narrowed to a pinprick as my outer casing shook displaying my fear towards Her.

"Do you not remember? I transferred your conscience from your human body into that shiny new core. I even gave you another choice for method of travel," She continued.

"What?" I said as six little mechanical legs popped out of my 'back' and I stumbled around like a drunken spider. She laughed at my pathetic attempts at coordination before speaking to me again.

"But for now, you will need a management rail to get you where you need to go. Don't detach from it unless you want to die," She said as the mechanical claw came down and picked me up. Her tone was mostly flat with a slightly sarcastic edge and I got the feeling that she said this to another core at some point.

"Wait, wait, wait! What are you going to do with my body?! My human body?!" I exclaimed as I saw it lying on the panel that it was splayed out on, eyes closed and still breathing.

"Oh, that. I'll just incinerate it." She said as She had another claw pick it up my the arm and flung it into the incinerator in the corner.

"... Wh-what did you just do!?" I shrieked. I swung in the claw's grip.

"Oh my God. You. You incinerated my body! Granted, I did always say that when I died I'd want to be cremated, but that's beside the point! Are you out of your mind?!" I continued ignoring the fact that I probably shouldn't be screaming at someone who could crush me with minimal effort. I stared at the incinerator as the opening closed.

"What am I going to tell my mother!?" I was sounding practically hysterical at this point. It then hit me that I was probably never going to see my mother again.

"Time to put you to work. Follow your rail to your designated work location. You will be assisting in the management of the human extended relaxation vaults. I trust that you will not attempt to escape with any of the test subjects. Or else." She said calmly. I just mutely rolled along the rail that Her claw had placed me on. I felt numb as I barely acknowledged the fact that I was basically receiving the tour that I was promised. Eventually, I made my way to the control room of the relaxation vaults and found that nobody was inside. There was a second rail, parallel to my own that led out towards the human storage rooms. I decided to wait in the control center until whoever managed the center returned.

Half hour later

I heard the quiet hum of wheels moving along the track and turned towards the entry way awaiting the returning core.

"Wheatley?! Your the current manager of the human relaxation vaults?!" I blurted out before I could stop myself. The core on a management rail parallel to mine turned towards me, bright blue optic immediately shifting its focus towards me and widened as though startled. I idly noticed that his optic was still cracked but other than that, he looked pretty good. I guess GLaDOS had him repaired (at least somewhat).

"Agh! For God's... What do you want?" Wheatley asked exasperation and exhaustion apparent. I had the feeling that most other cores probably tended to avoid him considering the damage that he had wrought in the past. I rolled forward on my own rail so that I was right next to him.

"So... She really did bring you back, huh?" I muttered quietly shifting my gaze away from him and onto the screens in front of us. I produced a synthesized sighing noise and rolled my optic and sat still for a bit thinking.

"Sorry. I guess that isn't really a good way to start a conversation or to greet a fellow core... Er, anyway, I was just... Made. She told me to go to the Human relaxation center and that I was to assist in managing the humans. I didn't know that you were put back in charge of the humans." I said closing my optic shutters slightly in an attempt of a smirk.

"What? You were just made and she is already putting you on management duty?!" He sputtered. I gave another synthesized sigh and rolled my optic.

"I don't know why. She just incinerated my human body and sent me on my way. What on Earth am I going to tell my mother..." I said.

"Wait just a tic! Did you just say that you were human?! How much do you remember?" Wheatley asked curiously.

"Everything that I remember as a human before my 'death,'" I replied with another optic role at the word 'death'.

"I just sort of got dragged here against my will. Of course, it is my fault for being such a gullible fool in fiddling with a portal device... But how was I supposed to know that it was real?! I just thought it was some sort of prank or just a random distribution of prop replicas. Although I guess that idea sounds really stupid now that I've said it out loud." I grumbled. My optic shot up and I started to move around frantically on my rail as I started to ramble.

"Oh my God, does that mean that I've been transported all the way to Michigan?! Am I even on the same planet anymore?! Am I even in the same dimension?! Omygodohmygodohmygodohmygod! What if I'm not even in the same universe!? Oh dear lord, no!" I ranted. My optic was going crazy as I just glanced around at everything desperate for a distraction.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, there. OK. Calm down, please. Just calm down! You're going to hurt yourself!" Wheatley said in a pleading tone. I just stared at him for a moment as a million thoughts raced through my mind. I could hear a fan whirring away. I idly noticed that the fan was inside of me and came to the conclusion that my systems were close to overheating. I then confirmed that fact as I saw a pop-up in my 'mind' flashing a sign that said 'cooling systems: activated'. I shuddered as I let myself slow down and make sure that I wouldn't explode (or something- jk probably).

"OK. Have you calmed down now? Good. So why don't we calmly assess the situation, hm?" He asked blinking his optic shutter as he tilted his optic in a questioning motion. I gave a sort of nod and made a noise as if trying to take a deep breath.

"Er, right. Um, so, I ah, sorry about that. I guess I got a bit, er, fired up. Heh. I'm alright now." I said. I paused for a moment to consider what I should and could say. I did not think that telling Wheatley that he was a fictional character from a video game series would be a good idea. But maybe, I could spin the truth a bit. Yeah, that would probably work. Hopefully. Taking another unnecessary breath, I wove my tale.

"Right. So, I guess that the first thing that I should say is: have you heard of a, ah, series called Portal. And no, I do not mean the things that shoot from the portal device. Well, I mean it is called Portal based off of the whole fact the main mechanic of the, um, series, is based off of puzzle solving with portals... Are you following me so far?" I asked. Wheatley gave a nod although he did look inquisitive.

"OK. So basically, this series is based off of the events that actually happened and it is basically like a virtual reality simulation that a person can navigate through. The, um, the operator - that is to say, the person going through the simulation- plays the role of Chell. I guess that you could say that those of us in the 'community' who have gone through the simulation, basically know all about Chell's escape from this facility." I explained. I fervently hoped that he would buy into my lies.

"Oh. I-I see. Well, that's... interesting." Wheatley said.

"So, yeah. I basically know all about your little Take over of the facility and all that good stuff. Um. Yep, the ah, designers of the simulation were able to get all the important details. Don't ask me how because I don't know. Hacking. Probably. Er. It is probably best not to mention this to Her. Yeah?" I said to Wheatley after a moment. He nodded in response. We both hung there in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes.

"Um. Right then. So I bet that you are raring to go and get to work. So basically, all you have to do is keep an eye on the humans and occasionally patrol this section of the facility, make sure that everything is in working order. Let Her know if any of the humans try to escape. That sort of thing. It's pretty easy once you get the hang of it." Wheatley said in a cheerful tone. Getting down to business. Work is a great distraction from uncomfortable topics.

"OK. So, um, which would you have me do? Should I go on patrol, do you want to monitor me and tell me anything else that I should do? What to look out for and what would be considered 'possibly and issue'?" I asked. The job sounded easy enough, but I just wanted to make sure that I knew what I was doing before getting started.

"Tell you what. Let us go on a patrol right now. I can show you where things are. What to check on and afterwards, I can explain to you all that I know about handling the humans." Wheatley said. Turning around, he motioned for me to follow him. I followed him on my rail and just listed to him just talk. I would occasionally point something out and ask about it and he would give me some long winded explanation about what it did (probably bs-ing half of the time) and it was soothing in a strange sort of way. After the patrol *cough* tour, Wheatley described what our job was. In the simplest of terms, it was wake up the test subjects after 50 days of hibernation or wake them up for testing. Other than that, it was just, keep an eye on things and make sure that nothing is exploding (kidding). My first day was uneventful. Wheatley explained that we weren't allowed to enter Sleep mode without Her permission except to recharge (which should only take about and hour or so according to Wheatley), so it was basically work 24/7. Fantastic.

End Chapter 2.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3 The Internet.